Lew French led the Winter Field Day effort. Here is his report submitted to Greg Fisher of Montrose County:

On January 26 and 27, 2018 Montrose County RACES (RACES) participated in Winter Field Day (WFD), www.winterfieldday.com., as an exercise to practice set up and operation in winter conditions. Members of the Montrose Amateur Radio Club (MARC), Delta County Auxcom, and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) participated. A total of 19 hams participated. Set up started at 0900 Saturday. Tear down was completed by 1400 Sunday.

Approximately 350 radio contacts were made using a mixture of CW (Morse Code) and phone (single sideband voice). Contacts as far away as Puerto Rico and Hawaii were made. Operations were conducted on the 20, 40, 80, and 160 meter bands.

The station was housed is the MARC travel trailer parked on the Montrose EOC parking lot. The MARC antenna trailer was use as the center support for a clip lead, multi-band dipole, 132 feet in length. Approximately 30 radials 66 feet in length were extended into the arroyo near the EOC.

Heat in the travel trailer was provided by a small portable electric heater running on AC mains power from the EOC. Generator, battery, and solar power were used for the radio transceiver.

The EOC was used for food preparation and as a gathering place for participants.
Participants appreciated the ability to warm up and relax in the EOC.
Due to band conditions we did not operate between 0000 and 0600 on Sunday. One participant spent the night at the EOC.

Results including our final score for the event will not be known for several months. As a training exercise it was successful. While this was our first year of participation in WFD we anticipate doing it again.

Club member Jim Adams, AAØCW, had his picture snapped from space. He was operating the Fox-1D “cubesat” satellite. You can see him as a faint red patch just above the lens flare.

Jim writes that AO-92 or Fox-1D is a radio amateur and technology research cubesat developed by AMSAT and hosting several university developed payloads. Launched December 2018.

Fox-1D is an 1U CubeSat designed to operate in Low Earth Orbit based on the design of Fox 1A. It carries a 2 meter whip antenna and a 70 cm whip antenna.

As affordable launch opportunities for amateur communications satellites become more rare, AMSAT devised a new strategy: a small cubesat, which hosts both an amateur communications payload as well as a scientific or technological payload, so that the satellite qualifies for launches in sponsored programs like NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) Program.

Fox-1D carries a high energy radiation instrument HERCI (High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument) developed by the University of Iowa Department of Physics and Astronomy, a Virginia Tech camera experiment, and a Pennsylvania State-Erie MEMS gyro experiment.

Fox-1D also serves as a communications relay for amateurs worldwide via the onboard FM repeater system. The communications and experiment missions will run concurrently. The repeater features a VHF downlink with FM analog voice and FSK data and UHF and L-band uplink.

Uses a small camera developed by the University of Virginia Tech that can at times be programmed with an uplink tone to take photos while in orbit which it did while coming over my house. Images are received as tone bursts and can be decoded using computer software.

Uplink to the satellite is 435.350 and downlink is 145.880. Anyone with an ht and whip antenna can both talk and received on this satellite.

Club member Chris DePuy relays that the HR100 board has made a final decision that this year’s race is to be held as scheduled July 20-22. There was some doubt due to the fire danger, but the board has decided to move ahead. Learn more at www.hardrock100.com.

Our club provides communications at several aid stations, and volunteers are always needed. Contact Chris DePuy.

Kathy Joslin, KK6RNV, provides the following photos taken at the Tailgate Party, our club’s annual swapfest, held June 2nd, 2018, at the Lion’s Pavilion at Confluence Park. Several of the photos show prize winners.

Current Solar-Terrestrial Data

Welcome to the Montrose Amateur Radio Club!

Our club, continuously active for over 50 years, is an ARRL-affiliated, general interest club serving a large swath of beautiful southwestern Colorado, including Montrose, Delta, Cedaredge, Paonia, Hotchkiss, Olathe, Lazear, Ridgway, Ouray, Telluride, Naturita, Nucla, Gunnison, and others. Our meetings are the third Friday of every month (except December) at 7:00 p.m. at the Olathe Community Center.